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Well, the motor's kinda crude and the transmission is positively
agricultural but the rest of the car is classy, fun to drive, roomy
and safe. I am convinced that I would have a hard time replacing
my 164 with another car of any vintage that would provide me with
all these features for less than $10,000 and likely it would cost me
lots more. Plus, although somewhat archaic in design, the volvo motors
are made with very high quality raw materials and good manufacturing
processes (valvetrain excluded). Plus, the execution of the archaic
design is relatively well thought out; the resulting lump is actually
not such a bad performer though heavy.
Ideally it would be trivial to put a modern DOHC I6 from toyota
in but that's not an economic option.
Fuel injection is actually not such a hard thing to put on these
motors because the hard stuff is already done by other people in the
form of volvo's fuel system and intake manifolds, existing heads with
injector holes in place, and aftermarket injection computers that can
be as little as $300us end to end if you do some of the work yourself.
All in all, I'd happily spend $3000 to $4000 to get a B30 in superior
operating condition, if I had a nice 164 to drop it into. And that $3000
is *only* $3000 for the machine work not including the parts or the
assembly...
Granted these are not nascar or even "I'm a crazy car collector and I
want my reproduction shelby cobra's connecting rods chromed" prices I'm
willing to spend, but still.
Where are you located?
chris
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